Tracy Beckerman is Lost in Suburbia and trying to hold onto just a little bit of her former, COOL, pre-mom self!

Lost in Suburbia Story of the Week: Lost and Found by Anna P.

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About this blog

Nationally syndicated columnist and author Tracy Beckerman is \x34Lost in Suburbia\x34 ­ managing the chaos with a healthy dose of humor. Her next book, a \x34momoir,\x34 will be published in spring 2013. She contributes to many online mom sites,
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Nationally syndicated columnist and author Tracy Beckerman is \x34Lost in Suburbia\x34 ­ managing the chaos with a healthy dose of humor. Her next book, a \x34momoir,\x34 will be published in spring 2013. She contributes to many online mom sites, including www.todaysmama.com, www.rolemommy.com and www.newjerseymomsblog.com and is an official blogger for Lifetime Television's hit show, \x34The Balancing Act.\x34 She also does stand-up comedy and has appeared at venues including The Comic Strip Live in NYC and The Erma Bombeck Workshop in Dayton, Ohio. Before she became a columnist, Beckerman was a writer and producer in the television industry for 10 years, managing the advertising & promotion department at WCBS-TV New York. Tracy is married to a very understanding guy. They have two children and live in New Jersey where she writes, does battle with woodchucks and avoids, at all costs, driving a minivan.

When my boys managed to survive to school age, we moved to Shelburbia. Shelburne is a white (even for Vermont), semi-rural, absolutely picturesque town of 7,000.

We have apples and crisp fall leaves, snowmen, and Ohlmstead designed farmlands, mountains, lakes, ponds, and rivers. Idyllic.
The thing about idyllic? Its not real. We still need to live each day and each detail. And those details are disorienting.
Farmshare pick up, soccer practice, minivan oil changes, dentist appointments, drop in crafts activities. All tracked on my iphone.
I was an only child to two workaholic parents. Other than music lessons all extra curricular activities were for my parents. I was dragged to museums or left to spread out blue towel on the upstairs landing to pretend it was a pool for my one Barbie doll.
Despite its lack of diversity, we picked our town for its school, which has a 10 rating on Great schools, and is charmingly pre K-8. I knew the school was for me (I mean my kids) when I saw the lost and found. Every item was hung neatly and arranged in chromatic order. It was everything I pretended I wanted and knew I could not create at home. So I would outsource order.
It’s hard to be counter culture in Shelburbia. I mean, I could wear brands OTHER than lululemon. I could bring soda to the soccer game. NEVER. I would never. I could choose not to compost. Such acts of rebellion.
We moved here so the kids could be independent. Walk to school, pop by neighborhood houses, build forts in the woods. It happened. The neighbors are all decorating for Halloween, tastefully of course with straw men, pumpkin piles, and handmade bats drifting in the trees. Other people will drive into our neighborhood to trick or treat. We will have full sized candy bars, instant celebrity for our kids.
This ideal childhood is really just the side effect of my laziness, the real incentive to relocate was to make it easier to parent. This suburb allows me to wave good bye to my kids in my pajamas as they run to the bus at the foot of our driveway. I have not had to arrange a playdate in months. The troops arrive and depart on an hourly basis. My only job is to make sure I have pants on. I manage that a lot of the time.
Our right now house, new version farm house with wide plank pine floors, a wood burning fire place in the Viking equipped kitchen in a tidy neighborhood bordering 130 acres of woods and the river is the house of most mom’s dreams. Its general appeal is its problem. The house is a microcosm of everything I have given up to become Mama.
I prefer quirky. Vintage. Character driven. I used to watch independent movies. Now I watch teen witch TV shows. I used to write short stories. Now I write blog posts about parenting. I used to complete the Sunday crossword puzzle, now I crush candy while pretending to care about Minecraft.

When I view it from the monthly calendar setting I love our life. Our family meetings, weekends away, Thursday night dates. Day view is a lot harder, laundry, meetings and battles about leaving the house, disgusting dinners, and all other inequities of daily life.